Thorsten Heins, BlackBerry's CEO: "Apple did a fantastic job in bringing touch devices to market ... They did a fantastic job with the user interface, they are a design icon. There is a reason why they were so successful, and we actually have to admit this and respect that. History repeats itself again I guess ... the rate of innovation is so high in our industry that if you don't innovate at that speed you can be replaced pretty quickly. The user interface on the iPhone, with all due respect for what this invention was all about is now five years old." Ironic, perhaps, that this comes from a BlackBerry CEO, but that doesn't make him wrong - although I'm sure the usual suspects will claim that it does.

There are a lot of educational applications out there, so I assume they'd go for those.

Yesterday I heard my son MUST have a laptop during his last year in primary school. Either you buy one or you can get one in a school deal and pay it off over a period.

I think this goes a little far. For one not all laptops, if parents can afford one, will survive until the end of the year. They will break, get stolen or become disabled by pupils/teachers/malware.

Maybe I should give him my old MacBook. It will probably not run the software they intend to distribute and then I can pretend to be upset I bought this expensive laptop and they can't even get it to work.

Yesterday I heard my son MUST have a laptop during his last year in primary school. Either you buy one or you can get one in a school deal and pay it off over a period.

This is extremely common in Australia. The school often demands that a specific model of laptop is to be used. The parents are expected to lease the laptop along with a support contract and preloaded software.